The artist talks about collaborating with Nike, which celebrity he’d float with in space, and the do’s and don’t’s for aspiring artists.

After spending just a few quick moments with Tom Sachs, his obsession with space starts to make perfect sense. It’s not just the way he and his team dress in their own very specific Jupiter-meets-Canal-Street way. It’s his restlessness that gives him away. You can look into his eyes and tell that he considers our terrestrial world already explored—picked over and exhibited and old news. Maybe that’s why Tom’s sculptures look like the creations of a genius NASA engineer who’s gotten into an intergalactic bind and has been forced to MacGyver together life-or-death tools with limited supplies. Where necessity and imagination meet—that’s where his stuff exists. And, by the way, it would all look damn cool in your living room. Or, in this case, on your feet. Sachs’s outrageously coveted collaboration with Nike—the Mars Yard 2.0 sneaker— was re-released this week. From the packaging to the fabrication, it’s an easy contender for sneaker of the year. And, as always, there was a kick ass party to commemorate the moment. We photographed all the cool kids at the show, and sat down with the moon-man himself to get a few pointers on how to work with big brands—and how to create interplanetary dopeness one screw at a time.

GQ Style: One of the coolest things about collaborations like this is that kids all over will be introduced to you and your art for the first time. How would Tom Sachs introduce Tom Sachs?Tom Sachs: Who am I? What am I? I’m a sculptor. I do sculpture—that’s what I do best. I’m like the Michael Jordan of sculpture. I just found out that LeBron also wears “23.” I’m the “23” of putting up a motherfucking bathroom shelf. I’m not afraid to drill into tile—I’m not afraid to crack a tile. I would say, watch Ten Bullets to learn about the culture of my studio. If you like that, I’d say, watch Color, which is like the color-code of the studio and teaches you about what color means to me. And then I’d watch Love Letter to Plywood, which is how I deal with materials, how I make things, because those are kind of like the indoctrination films of the culture of our studio.

You’re Wes Andersonian in the sense that everything you touch and work on has a distinct look and voice. Even these sneakers. How would you define your voice?
Transparency. Showing the work. The best made thing in the world ever is the iPhone but there’s no evidence a human being was there. It’s an incredible object but it’s almost obsolete, right? It’s like garbage in two years because it’s not supported, because Apple uses planned obsolescence to not support the old products. We make heirloom products. Even this shoe, we’ve done our best to make it last as long as we can. Sometimes we fail but our intention is to make it last as long as we can. And also for it to be made out of materials that show the evidence of you wearing it. Guys used to have toothbrushes behind their ears to clean their sneakers. We’re making a shoe that’s like the exact opposite of that. We want you to rock it with filth.

Friend of GQ Style, Bill Powers, recently posted a picture of his original pair and they’re just completely destroyed.
Bill’s awesome for rocking them wrecked. Instead of just getting a new pair of whatever other sneakers or asking me for another pair, he’s showing his pride, and that, I believe, is what makes Bill cool. He’s showing his scars on his sleeves. And I think that’s something that’s very important to me and my work. I paint my plywood white so you can see the scars and scuffs.

What’s the space movie?
I will not give you just one! Gravity is good too. Even with Sandra Bullock it was still great. Even she couldn’t ruin that movie it’s so good.

What’s the most overrated space movie?
I don’t really want to talk shit, but, there’s so many. It’s such an exploited genre, but, if I’m gonna be totally honest, the one movie that I would recommend more than anything is A Space Program directed by Van Neistat. It’s on iTunes and it’s the best movie about space, about two women who go to Mars and get into a fight and have to like wipe each other’s butts and drink tea.

If you had to be stuck in space with one person that’s a not family or someone you work with, who would it be?
Stuck in space for how long?

For eternity.
For eternity?

You’re just floating in space with this one person for eternity.
Well I had this conversation with my wife and we get like a “hall pass”—a celebrity hall pass—and she chose Ed Ruscha and then I chose Mila Kunis because she’s the voice of Meg Griffin on Family Guy. But then for some reason the “hall pass” was taken away from me.

That’s not how it works.
I know!

By definition the “hall pass” is, um, a pass.
I know. I just don’t think she knows how tenacious I am.

So Mila Kunis.
Alright, but I don’t want that to be my definitive answer.

We’re living in an era where more and more young people are quitting their boring day jobs and doing things that are creative—and awesome. What advice would you give them for collaborating with brands as big and ubiquitous as Nike?
I’m gonna give this advice to myself ten years ago. Like I wish I had heard this: You’re not selling out, you’re getting to do graffiti on the side of a 747. This is a great opportunity. Recognize what they can bring to you and what you can bring to them. The second thing: there’s this African expression that basically means, “if we go fast, we go alone, if we go far, we go together.” I can go faster by myself, right? But if you want to go far, we need food, we need fuel, etc. So with Nike, it’s about going far ‘cause we’re reaching many people. And then lastly there are things that I can do as an artist that Nike can’t do, and there are things that I can say that Nike can’t say, and I’m always pushing those limits. And you should always push those limits. You should always fight as hard, tooth and nail, to be yourself and say and do the most fucked-up things that are specifically you as you can and fight them on it, because that’s why they want you to be there. It’s to challenge them.

How do you deal with being copied?
Well it only pisses me off when they do it worse. To all the copiers out there, I would say, “Come on guys, let’s move the ball forward. Build on what I do, but take it to the next level, make it yours. Don’t just copy my shit. Make it, build on, steal from me, but make it better.”

Biggest mistake you’ve made as an artist?
I don’t know about “mistakes,” but if I could go back in time, I wish that I had focused more on math and chemistry, because those foundation/skills are with you for the rest of your life. And I still have to pause before I can answer what eight times seven is.

What’s eight times seven?
Well I had time to say that it’s fifty-six, but it’s not automatic. And I think it’s a huge waste of time. To quote the great James Brown, “Stay in school, don’t be a drop-out.”

Biggest mistake you’ve made as a man?
I can’t remember her name.

How do you build the perfect team?
Yelling doesn’t help. Find people that you love to work with, get rid of the ones you don’t. Be ruthless about that. Don’t waste a lot of time. Support and pay the good ones as much as they need to keep going. Take care of them. They’re your family, whether you like it or not—whether you like them or not. Lastly, allow people who are better than you at certain things to be better than you. Exploit that and encourage them to be better.